I was looking at Peer Trainer this morning on the nutrition in certain foods. Here is an excerpt.

Calories and Nutrition in A Banana:

bananas rank 45 out of 100 on Joel Fuhrman's nutrient density scale.

there are roughly 100 calories in a banana.

banana's are a near perfect food to fight high blood pressure because they contain 469 mg of potassium vs 1 mg of sodium. The most recent research on high blood pressure
cites a "deficit of potassium, as the dominant environmental factor in the pathogenesis of primary hypertension
and its associated cardiovascular risk."

Here are some more highlights on the nutritional and health benefits of bananas:

* They boost your bodies ability to produce probiotics and are considered a "prebiotic"
* promotes bone strength by conteracting the calcium elimination effect of salt.
* banana's help to rebuild the stomach lining and considered good protection against ulcers

I have been craving bananas and it is nice to know why.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Carol. I hope you're feeling better today.

Suddenly I am wanting to eat a banana. Haven't had enough carbs yet this morning, think I'll do just that!

carolr Sure hope you are feeling better today. I knew bananas are good for lowering blood pressure. So many years bananas got a bum deal. Now they are finding they are so good for us... even more than anyone ever knew.

Blue How are you doing?

Well, I am really feeling good about the way I'm eating. I enjoy being able to eat when I need to eat and not eating by the clock. So, so liberating.

Have a great day.

Hello everyone!

Trish, sounds like once again, you and I are on the same path on this journey. I am finally settling into a way of eating that I can live with and that I believe will have lasting results (ie. normal glucose levels, possibly warding off diabetes, eating intuitively). And as a bonus, I'm losing weight. As far as any great amount of weight loss, it is still too early to tell, but I believe I'm on the right track to get this weight off once and for all. The effects of getting the blood sugar under control have been quite a pleasant surprise for me. Cravings and uncontrollable binges are gone. I feel like a new person. I believe capping my carbs has actually freed me TO eat intuitively.

Looking back, I believe that all the weight I had gained while doing IE was because I was giving myself permission to eat and I was gravitating towards all those carb-laden foods that I had previously avoided (a natural healing process in IE) but the overload of carbs kept me craving more of the same. So I got away from eating nutritious things and was loading up on starchy, high-calorie foods, thus the 10 +/- pound weight gain since starting IE. I would say that most of that weight is now gone and I'm almost back to the weight I was at when I joined 3FC. I haven't been keeping close track, just stepping on the scale now and then, but it goes something like this: joined 3FC around 193 lbs. Lost about 5 or 6 of that while still dieting. Gained it all back while getting fed up with diets and learning about IE. Gained about 10-11 pounds while IEing bringing me up to the highest my scale has ever said, 204. After that, I dropped about 2 pounds naturally. And today I'm back down to 194 since I started watching my carbs. Most of the weight lost in the last week has probably been water weight, those first several pounds that come off quite easily. But hopefully this weight-loss will continue on the downward now that I think things are finally under control. If I continue to see the scale dropping I may put my ticker back up to keep track. (I took it off to help get me settled into IE ... It's no fun watching the ticker bounce around like a basket ball, but to watch it go down would be quite the treat! lol)

So how is everyone else out there doing? Hope everyone is having a great IE day!

Blue wrote Blue I agree 100%. That is exactly what happened to me. Since I have combined IE with CAD, the cravings are gone and my weight is starting to come back down plus I feel much better.

carolr Hope you are feeling better.

Have a good day.

Feeling good today. Sounds like you girls are doing really well with IE+. ha! Just wanted to share that I have had several almond joys in my cupboard for a month. Just lost my taste for them Dear dh will gladly eat them. Can't eat anything more than a happy meal at McDonalds anymore. It does work it really does.

Hi carolr So glad you are feeling better.

I have come to the place that I drink loads of water and I guess what I've heard all these years are true. I've always heard that we eat when we really need water. I have only eat one meal today. When I think I might want something to eat, I drink some water first and I'm not hungry. Hope this lasts for a while any way.

I just came across something called Intermittent Fasting. I don't know much about it, but people eat one healthy meal a day or fast every other day or on week ends from what I understand. It varies. But the body gets so much productive rest that it needs from this. I think it is interesting that sometimes IE automatically does this.

I am really enjoying the fact that food is not on my mind all the time. I only have to think a preparing a meal once a day. If I need a snack later, I know I can have it. It's just not a planned have to do thing any more. So liberating. I have to admitt that I wondered if I would ever get to this point.

Sometimes just eating 3 meals a day feels like fasting. I don't mean physically, but because it actually seems so extreme amongst the snacking / mini-mealing masses on these forums.

I still snack sometimes, and I don't know yet what meal pattern will be best for me. Maybe something in between (I have a hard time between breakfast and lunch, but I'm fine between lunch and dinner and between dinner and bed). But at least I do truly feel I can rely on my body to tell me. It may take some time, and it will definitely take some more effort/attention than I have been putting into it.

But I know so many feel they just can't rely on their bodies. They have to rely a schedule / plan. I don't mean that one or the other is better. I think it's fabulous every time even one more woman figures out what really works for *her.* But I'm glad I'm in this camp.

I know what you mean Julie, I hear so much about "keeping the furnace burning" with snacks and eatting ever 2-3 hours. So I eat when I'm not hungry for fear of not losing. Thats not quite working out for me anyway, lol Im gonna try eatting bkfst lunch and dinner if im hungry for them and see what happens. I do wish I can take your lead on not snacking between dinner and bed..thats a tough one for me.

Just checking in to say

I am thoroughly enjoying my way of eating. Today is my WI I am down 1.5 lbs this week making a total of 15 lbs for this year so far.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

You know, it wasn't something I decided I should do. I'm just not hungry in between lunch and dinner, usually, so I thought, why the heck am I making myself have a snack?

Then, I decided to try no snacking. But it seemed like, no matter what I had for breakfast (around 7am), I was hungry by 10 or 10:30. So again, I just stopped fighting it and I have a snack.

But anyone else might have a different pattern.

I have that feeling after breakfast, too. I just can't eat a big breakfast.

I ran across a couple books recently that relate to IE, so I thought I'd share.

The first is "The Don't Go Hungry Diet," by Dr. Amanda Sainsbury-Salis (a scientist not physician). Published in New Zealand, I think, so not available directly in the states I don't think. But I browsed her website and registered so I could read the first chapter, plus she posts a FAQ section and newsletters that explain a lot. She developed her system based on her research and on her own weight loss experience. A lot of similarities with IE. But I actually like her viewpoint better. I think she integrates healthy food and weight loss better.

The second is "The Slow Down Diet" by Marc David, a nutritionist. His premise is that our obesity problem comes from the way we eat - not relaxed, not high quality, not with pleasure. His views on how eating in a rush and with unpleasant thoughts and emotions about food affect our digestion and metabolism are very interesting. I think perhaps the section on relaxation is the best. He actually offers no meal plan at all, and food guidelines in only a very general way. His "system" is one of 8 keys - Relaxation (including breathing), Quality, Awareness (mindfulness), Rhythm (not skipping meals, also non-food rhythms like sleep and relaxation and socializing), Pleasure, Thought, Story, and the Sacred.

I didn't read the latter half of the book in much detail as a I ran out of time, so I'm not quite sure what Story and Sacred were about. But I did skip to the end, and found the last paragraph to be amazing and unexpected; I'll try to copy and post it later. You'll see what I mean.

I'm not sure he's presenting anything earth-shatteringly new, but I know I can use all the encouragement I can get . Like I said, I think I most appreciated the way he brings your emotional and mental state into the equation. His explanation of the "French Paradox" is that it's not just the food, it's that they eat under the influence of their parasympathetic nervous system, and we eat under the influence of our sympathetic nervous system.

Here is the excerpt I mentioned. He had it as a paragraph, but I copied it as a list. I think it would be an outstanding resource to create one's own personalized list based on his example.

• Before you test the chemistry of your body, taste your tears.
• Before you take a drug, meditate, reflect, and pray.
• Before you limit yourself with a diet, expand yourself with love.
• Before you lose a pound, gain an insight.
• Before you exercise, be still.
• Before you attempt to cast out a bad habit, thank it for its teachings.
• Before you harm yourself in thought, word, or deed, pause.
• Before you allow someone dominion over your body, awaken.
• Before you seek advice, remember your wisdom.
• Before you speak, make sure it's an improvement on silence.
• Before you're intimate with another, touch the sacred.
• Before you fall ill, catch yourself.
• Before you lapse into fear, choose light.
• Before you believe in a world absent of a Creator, give birth.
• Before you remember your divine purpose, celebrate its imminent arrival.
• Before you eat, give gratitude.
• Before you sit for long hours, dance
• Before you arise, bless everything.
• Before you sleep, do the same.
• Before you live another day, agree to be here in your fullness.
• And before you breathe another breath, choose eternity, choose love, choose now.

I like this one, Julie..........Before you sit for long hours, dance. I tend to sit a lot at the computer probably because I can't be in the sun and it distracts me. I do go work in the garden just before the sun goes down. I've been hungry in the middle of the night again. I wonder if that means I'm not eating enough in the day. My blood work came out good last week.